Guy Uses iPhone App to Track Down His Stolen iPhone — Then Fights the Man Who Stole It

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A 26-year-old construction worker from San Diego used a location app to successfully track down his stolen iPhone. And when he found the thief, the two got into a physical altercation that ended in the thief getting pepper sprayed and detained by an off-duty cop.

And the whole thing was captured on video.

Kenneth Schmidgall says his iPhone was stolen from a reggae concert on Dec. 28. Like anyone who has ever lost a cellphone, he first tried to call his phone, but it was pointless. So, Schmidgall and his buddy, Greg Torkelson, used an app called “Find My iPhone” to hunt it down.

After tracking the phone for hours, they traced the signal to a man riding a bike.

“I saw the gentleman on the bike and we followed it and kept tracking it and every time it would stop, the guy on the bike would stop,” Schmidgall told ABC 10News.

In the video of the scuffle, Schmidgall appears to get hit in the face. He says the thief was holding a rock in his other hand.

The two men continue to fight until Torkelson pepper-sprayed the iPhone burglar. Shortly after, an off-duty police officer stepped in and held the man until police arrived.

When asked if the phone was worth all the trouble, Schmidgall said, “It’s not the phone that’s so much important…It’s that people get away with this kind of stuff all the time with cellphones being stolen.”

“I do think I taught him his lesson,” he continued. “I really don’t think people should be going out and getting in fights with people because of their cellphones but there comes a point when you have to stand up for yourself and say, ‘This is my stuff, and I’m not going to let people get away with taking it.’”

“Torkelson believes the alleged thief was taken into custody for outstanding warrants from separate incidents. However, police have not yet been able to confirm that,” ABC 10 News reports.